Public apologies, thermomixes puberty and more....

We would like to start this blog post with a public apology - We (well mainly me, Josie, chief blog writter) are sorry! We are sorry that whilst we have maintained our love of all things handmade, all things The Owl and the Elephant and all things Pinterest we have neglected our blog. So we ask you faithful followers (if there are any of you still lurking in the shadows!) do you forgive us? Our mid year resolution is to get back on top of this blogging business and provide you with far more tutorials, awesome pics, lovely links and occasional hilarity! Starting..............

not yet.....
not yet....

NOW!!

In the past couple of days *cough*months*cough* since our last blog post ALOT has happened!!! You all met Baby Scarlett when she was just a weeeeee little thing - well look at her now!

We just love this kid!!!

Now because Nat hasn't got enough on her plate with 3 gorgeous girls, a house to run AND The Owl and the Elephant, her love of all things Thermomix has led her to become a consultant! You can check out her OTHER blog (this blog has gotten over the jealousy factor and decided to up the anti!!) here and also follow her on facebook here .

I myself have been busy dealing with a pre-pubescent boy  - no one told me what THAT would be like.... hold on to the terrible two's people - you aint seen nothing yet!!! As well as gearing up for birthday MONTHS in our house. Place into that the wedding of a sister, some volunteer work with premmie babies that is... well.. in the works, my obvious need to procrastinate about EVERYTHING and my love of moving furniture around and you have the story of my life to date! But I will throw in a wee recent photo of my brood just to make it seem more exciting!

They do keep me busy but how cute are they? Hmmm... they must come from an AMAZING gene pool.....


Now The Owl and the Elephant whilst being absent from the land of Blog has been busy busy busy re-designing our market stall:

So tell us... what do you think? We cannot help but look at the ruffles and *sigh*

So as you can see dear neglected followers dispite our bad behaviour and lack of blog posts life has continued on! We have some awesomely awesome new products in the works which we CANNOT wait to show you but for the moment we shall leave you with this......

A photo of our lovely lovely luffly vintage inspired printed canvas art. Love them so much you NEEEEEED to have one at your place? Or perhaps you know somebody who would want nothing more than a moustache on their side table? These are available for purchase here - we can't wait to see which one you choose!




Thought of the moment:

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.  (we hope!!) 

Thomas Haynes Bayley 

We ❤ Ruffles!! | Our Market Stall Re-vamp

After almost 2 years our little business is getting a market stall makeover! We wanted to inject our love of fabrics, patterns and colour into our stall and show our faithful followers (the ones who know what people mean when they say "the table with the blue and white polka-dots") how much we have "grown up". We are big kids now!! 
It has certainly been an A-mazing time we have added a baby to the mix, juggled a hubby who flys in and out for ridiculous amounts of time, as well as a shift working hubby, toilet training children, tantruming toddlers, first time school kids and pre-pubescent boys! We have been lucky enough to meet some incredible people along the the way and learnt a heck of alot about ourselves, each other and the business world that is work-at-home hand-crafting mums!! So the time has definitely come to have a market stall that reflects how much we have changed from those 2 clueless first timers to where we are now!

Inspired by this lovely creation at Bella Studio, we started searching online for where we could purchase something similar. All the ones we found were $200-$400 and no where near as nice as what we envisioned and didn't quite meet "The Owl and the Elephant" criteria, so of course we decided we had to make our own! This meant it was time for one of our all time favourite things -  fabric shopping! And that was where the fun stopped..... next came the not so fun part MATHS! It was certainly an interesting time figuring out how to get the right amount of each fabric, how many strips of each fabric we would need to sew together to get the right length of fabric to go all around the table, and then getting the ruffle ratio to look pretty. What a flashback to high school algebra! You should see our 'working out' sheet. Josie was TOTALLY the brains behind this one *cough* she sucks at maths and Nat had to work it out pretty much single handedly whilst Josie entertained the m&m's (Max and Mischa!) with various forms of "spalarkaly" stuff *cough* copious amounts of snacks.

So for those of you wanting to play at home...here is a 'semi-tutorial' for figuring out your fabric requirements:

Trestle table = 180cm wide. We wanted to ruffle the front and sides and leave the back open for stock access and to avoid bulk and weight. So our overall length that we were wanting to ruffle was 330cm (75cm side + 180cm front + 75cm side)
We had 7 fabrics we wanted to use. The length of our table from top to floor is 75cm. So 75cm ÷ 7 = 10.7cm. We then added allowance for the top of the ruffle seam and an overhang so each ruffle covered the next one slightly, and made our strips 12cm 'deep'. 
After purchasing a ruffling foot (best....thing.....EVER!!!) we did many trials to find the perfect number of ruffles and the perfect depth that gave us the look we wanted. This worked out to just under a 2:1 ratio, meaning for every 2 metres of fabric we got just under 1 metre of ruffled fabric. So our 7 gorgeous fabric prints were cut into 12cm strips and we used 6 full fabric widths, sewn together to make around 6m per fabric type.

 Sooo bearing all of the above in mind....all up we have 42 metres of strips ready to ruffle!!
Here are some pics of the during stages...

All our strips joined together and edges overlocked (or serged) ready to put through the machine with the ruffling foot. 

Some closeups of our fabric combinations...

Feeding the strips through with the ruffling foot attachment. Best money ever spent, would have taken DAYS to sew gathering and gather them all up by hand...

Close up of the ruffling foot

Ruffly goodness glinting in the sunlight....sigh!!

And that is not all! We have more pretties in mind for our stall! Think lace canopies, Anthropologie inspired ruffle backdrops, patchwork logo-banners, shabby chic frames ad more....ahhh its is going to be divine! Can you smell it???? See us at the next Market Girl and Perth Upmarket.


If you love ruffles, be sure to check out one of our favourite Perth designers, Alana from Yuminess Textiles. Her ruffles are sought after nation-wide and we are so proud of how her business has grown. She puts the awesome in amazing!

Thought of the moment: 

Sewing: A creative mess is better than tidy idleness.  ~Author Unknown

spending our hard earned dosh....

The hardest part by far of working at the markets with so many other amazingly fabulous retailers is trying hard not to spend all our takings! We have also developed quite an addiction to online "browsing" in search of further handmade goodness! The credit card does not thank us but it is however an absolute joy to support Australian handmade.

Here are some of the beautiful items we have not been able to pass up from Perth handcrafting geniuses!.....

We both bought two dolls each from the lovely lovely lady behind Elsie and Jim. They are simply too cute to pass up, she is just lovely and her prices are ridiculous!

The littlest Owls are receiving these gorgeous playhouses from the beautiful Nicola at  Poppy and Bea - check out the photos, they really speak for themselves!!

I (Mrs Owl) can now be seen proudly strutting my stuff with my simply divine Charlotte shopper crafted by the clever Maz at  Tex & Joe  :

This stunning upcycled ring:

is a christmas present crafted by Robin Gage designs and purchased from the lovely ladies at foxes of fancy. They have so many beautiful goodies which are all entirly 100% eco friendly to boot!



Robyn at Focus on Art is the mastermind behind this beautiful elephant gifted to MY beautiful elephant earlier this year:

and another of her amazing pieces is heading to a lucky family member in Sydney for Christmas as we speak!

We are both proud owners of delicious handmade necklaces from Handmade by Elbie - can you really blame us?

ALL The Owl and the Elephant offspring will soon be spending their time madly playing these amazing handmade games crafted by Amber from Mollydagmade

This cute as a button "superhero" dress was custom made for Miss Owl by the wonderful Victoria at Brusselsprouts and is definitely a favourite! As is the matching pirate set modelled by Master two!

What have been some of your favourite handmade purchases? We would love to hear about them!!


Thought of the moment:

When women are depressed, they eat or go shopping.  Men invade another country.  It's a whole different way of thinking.  ~Elayne Boosler

WOHOOOO!!!

Perth upmarket this weekend people!!!! We are so far beyond excitement that just for this little while, just for a bit, just for a blink and you will miss it period of time over at our website we are offering not 5, not 10, but 20% off ALL our beautiful everyone asks about it sells like hot cakes shabby chic, revamped, restored, recycled, reloved  furniture!!! Handcrafted with lots of love ( and patience!) and waiting for new homes....

Simply head over to our website choose your favourite piece ( or pieces!!) and enter the code IHEARTFURNITURE at the checkout.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy!!!

Thought of the moment:

WOHOOOOOO!!!!

friday night love.....

On this rainy night in Perth there is nothing better than a cuppa, a couch and a couple of good blogs to read!

Tonight (and every other night!) at The Owl and the Elephant  we are LOVING Table Tonic. From fashion to magazines to recipes to interior design it has it all!

Beautifully written and accompanied by beautiful pictures it is well worth a read. In fact pop on over now and tell Louise we sent you, we know she would love you to visit!

Speaking of beautiful things.... Have you been past our website lately and checked out our stylish yet functional lanyards? they are our newest favourite thing!!!

Elephants in Ebony

Olive Wallflower

Tangerine Sunburst

Thought of the moment:

Rain Rain go away we have Perth Upmarket on Sunday!

STOP.. Hammertime!

So you know those days when someone just has to say a word or you just have to see a picture and thats IT! Its stuck... that annoying little song that just goes round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round in your head - even MORE anoying when you only know two words and the rest is all " da da da da dum dum de de da da" .
This did it for me today.....

Now all I can do is - stop! Hammertime! Lucky its such a cool picture hey? (and a cool song *blush* ).
What song gets stuck in your head?

Our kids have been doing a bit of the same to each other - Bella Owl has such an obsession with Michael Jackson she has totally terrified Evie Elephant with Zombies from Thriller and Evie Elephant has such an obsession with The wizard of Oz she has totally terrifed Bella Owl with talk of cyclones and being "swept away" lucky they are so damn cute hey? Do your kids have any fears (irrational or otherwise!) that have been passed on by others?

Anyway fluff and fancy aside - we are VERY super dooper oupper exited to be attending not only Market Girl but also Perth Upmarket  where we will be showcasing our awesomely awesome (orse even!) range of homewares, handcrafted goodies and delectable delightful range of beautiful fabric covered light switch covers, baby wipes cases, chalk mats, fabric baskets, serving trays, glass dishes, screens and more!!!
We so hope to see you there!!! What will you be keeping your eye out for?

kalamunda markets

What looks like an attempt to empty a house is actually how Nat and I spent our Friday evening, getting ready for the Kalamunda markets!! We decided this time to do a full set up in Nat's dining room so that by the time we arrived at the markets we knew EXACTLY where we wanted everything to go!

What do you think of our setup?

                                                  

the perfect spot for the perfect market shop!

Our "try it and see" temptation table with our little cute as a button "tool" crayons which unfortunately did not take to kindly to the warm sunny day!!

We met some so many lovely people and a big thankyou to all those that came past to say hi!! The Owl arrived home sporting a killer sunburn ( lesson learnt!!) and we scored some extra special goodies (the hardest part of markets - trying not to spend  the takings!!) and had an all round awesomely awesome day.

We would LOVE to know what you think of our setup - any suggestions? observations? compliments? 

(te he he) 

Thought of the moment: 

Sunburn hurts. Wear sunscreen.

to market to market to buy a fat pig.....

Hands down one of the "funnest" parts of owning a business such as The Owl and the Elephant is attending markets, both as a shopper and a seller! We love to "get amongst it" and see what WA handmade has to offer and WOW!! there are certainly some talents out there! One of the HARDEST parts of having a stall at any markets is not spending all the money we make on all the beautiful goods available!

Last weekend we decided to do some research *cough* shopping *cough* and headed off to the Kalamunda markets to see if The Owl and the Elephant would "fit in".


We set out bright and early with all the best intentions of getting to the markets for open time but decided to take a detour *cough* get lost *cough* and took the scenic route past Mundaring Weir. When we FINALLY got there we where blown away by the array of gorgeous goodies.

Kalamunda Markets

What beautiful things we saw!! We have put in our application and cannot wait to have our first stall there. Stay tuned, you certainly won't want to miss it!

Another market we just LOVE is Market Girl and if you would like to come and check out The Owl and the Elephant " in the flesh" so to speak we will be there on the 13th February. One of the best parts of markets is when our facebook likers (and now faithful blog followers!) come to see us - so please come say hi!! We might even have to work out some "special" for our fans who mention where they follow us. Hmm now there's an idea!
As we have so many lovely things if you ARE coming to the markets and there is something particular you would like to see please let us know.   Now would also be a great time to get those custom orders in so you can save on postage and just come past and pick it up.

Market Girl

and now just a teaser of our beautiful market spreads....

We really do hope to catch all you Perthies there! If nothing more, its a great day out!

Thought of the moment: 

Whatever you feed the most- your heart or your convictions- will become the stronger and in the end will claim the victory